Conor O’Shea will take over as Italy boss in June, that much we know.
How the appointment came about? Why now? What are his goals over the four-year stint? We are none the wiser on these counts.
Maybe it is the respect that he has for his group of Harlequins, where he has been director of rugby for the last six years, that means he is reluctant to get into the details of his first international job – the rejuvenation of an Italy team that has finished 11 of their 17 Six Nations campaigns bottom of the pile.
“I’ll consider it once I sit down and talk to people,” O’Shea told RTÉ Sport. “I’ll do that from June onwards.
"Rather than having a pre-conception and being arrogant and ignorant enough to think you can comment without actually being right in the middle of things, it would be the wrong thing to do so that’s why I’ll wait until then and finish off with Quins.”
With a Challenge Cup semi-final coming against Connacht conquerors Grenoble on Friday week, there’s no hint from O’Shea that his focus is not fully on ending his time at the Stoop with silverware, no lame duck manager here.
Pressed on whether or not he sees the transition from club boss to international boss to home country boss, of Ireland of course, as a natural trajectory, he’s not budging.
“I’m not even thinking that way. I’m thinking solely about the next six, seven weeks with Harlequins and then a pretty quick transition but that will be done in that time,” says the ex-Ireland full-back, who has led the club to Premiership and Challenge Cup titles since taking over in 2010.
“It will be six or seven weeks of hard work, trying to finish off with a group of people that have given me so much, both the players and the coaches at Quins.
"I want to finish off in the right way with them because we’ve had six unbelievable years of highs and lows and that’s the excitement of sport.”
With that end of things done and dusted, the 45-year-old is more comfortable slipping into this pundit jacket and elaborating on Ireland’s chances on a three-Test summer tour in South Africa, an “incredibly difficult” place to go.
Many of the touring party that goes south in June will have been in action since the World Cup warm-ups last August, while Leinster and Connacht are currently in Pro12 play-off spots, with Ulster and Munster hoping to join them.
It looks likely that there will be a lot of tired rugby players pitching up for duty in Cape Town on 11 June.
O’Shea, who played in the infamous Battle of Pretoria in 1998, still reckons that Ireland can record their first ever win against the Springboks on South African soil and cites the failures of three provinces to get out of the pool stages of the Champions Cup as a reason for optimism.
“It depends on the mental and physical state of the players,” says the former Lansdowne back, who is launching Irish Life MAPS in Dublin.
“I think in a weird way the lack of European rugby has given a little bit of respite to some players.
“It might be a pretty bitter pill to take but it will give them certain weeks that they can just regenerate the body, and on the run-in, how far do you go in the Pro12 – not everyone will get the whole way there.
“So it all depends, players are so conditioned now.
“It’s tough, no one knows the physical and mental state of the players, no matter how much they talk about it, and you’ll see is it a bridge too far but it can become an easy excuse, a crutch to use.
"I don’t think Joe [Schmidt, Ireland coach] will allow it to become a crutch.”
If Ireland are to look for potential pluses, the hosts have a new man at the helm.
Allister Coetzee, who was assistant to World Cup-winning coach Jake White in 2007, takes over from Heyneke Meyer.
“I haven’t really thought about how that would impact them,” says O’Shea, capped 35 times between 1993 and 2000.
“I think Joe will be very comfortable in this mythical name of transition that we always use of where he’s at with the squad, and some of the young players that we’ve seen come through and some of the senior players that will come back and the way some of the older players actually stood up and led [during the Six Nations].
“It’s a tough place to tour because they are such a proud rugby nation. They’ll see where they are at.”
And with that O’Shea heads off, to concentrate on nothing but adding to Harlequins' trophy cabinet.
